The State of Black Women Founders: PROJECTDIANE 2018

digitalundivided is excited to announce the release of ProjectDiane 2018 — a much anticipated follow-up to the data we collected in 2016.

In 2016, digitalundivided set out to do something unprecedented. Our goal was to quantify the state of Black women in entrepreneurship with the release of ProjectDiane, our ongoing proprietary research study. We wanted to impact the narrative about Black and Latinx women founders with data to support the anecdotes and stories we had all heard and knew to be true: the startup ecosystem had a diversity and inclusion problem.

Not only did we build a data story around this problem, but ProjectDiane 2016 sparked a nationwide dialogue about inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation.

The 2018 report, which was created in collaboration with JPMorgan Chase, the Case Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,includes key findings such as:

· The number of innovative startups founded by Black women has more than doubled since 2016

YET

· The average funding raised by all Black women founders is $42,000.

· After the release of ProjectDiane 2016, the amount raised by Black women founders increased 500%, from $50 million in 2016 to $250 million in 2017.

YET

· Black women raised only .0006% of all tech venture funding since 2009.

The full ProjectDiane 2018 report and findings can be found at HERE: ProjectDiane 2018

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the years. We know the work we’re doing at digitalundivided matters. Our impact in this space is quantifiable, but our work is far from over. The future of entrepreneurship is Black, Brown, and female, but the startup ecosystems and pipelines have a great deal of work to do to support these women.